FIGS. 1A and 1B depict air-bearing surface (ABS) and top views of a conventional magnetic recording apparatus 10. The magnetic recording apparatus 10 may be a perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) apparatus or other magnetic write apparatus. The conventional magnetic recording apparatus 10 may be a part of a merged head including the write apparatus 10 and a read apparatus (not shown). Alternatively, the magnetic recording head may only include the write apparatus 10.
The write apparatus 10 includes a leading shield 12, a nonmagnetic gap layer 14, side shield(s) 16, a pole 20 and a trailing shield 30. The apparatus 10 may also include other components including but not limited to coils for energizing the pole 20. The trailing surface (top) of the pole 20 is wider than the leading surface (bottom) of the pole 20.
Although the conventional magnetic recording apparatus 10 functions, there are drawbacks. In particular, the side shields 16 may have tails 17 developed during fabrication. These tails 17 cause the side shields 16 to have a longer effective throat height (distance from the ABS). The tails 17 also result in additional shunting of magnetic flux from the pole 20. Thus, performance may be adversely affected. Accordingly, what is needed is a system and method for improving the performance of a magnetic recording write apparatus 10.